Laddu quota - UPDATES added

That is what we used to call the seats reserved for out of town AP-origin candidates in engineering. Because they used to get seats like, you guessed it right, laddus. Its a shame since some of them were really smart and would've gotten in anyways, but they got branded laddus all the same.

And all through my professional life I've always been aware of a slight shadow of shame because I used the 33% reservation for women in engineering. (Although I would have still graduated out with the same degree from the same Univ, reservation or no reservation. Still, I didn't need it, and I hated falling under that cap)

And now my government decided to further insult my intelligence and capability by reserving MP positions for me.

Great! Now when I go to the parliament, some moron can refuse to listen to my opinion because "I only got there by reservation".

Seriously, when will we stop fragmenting everything into quotas. I think that time is not far away when there won't be any general pool left for people to vie for meritoriously. It will all be "mil baant ke khana".

The nasty Congress guys have taken this reservation thing so much further (pervaded IITs and IIMs too), I have no words to react.

I am outraged. Period.

UPDATES:

1) I forgot to include the viewpoint of this bill doing anything for the upliftment of rural unempowered women. One of the first questions that came to my mind was how are they going to ensure that a woman wins the election. Because reservation or not, you still have to fight and win right? Then Subhash mentioned that 1/3rd of the constituencies are going to be declared women constituencies. And only women can fight it. Wow! So now it gets murkier. How are they going to decide which constituencies be made women ones? More rural ones or more urban ones? And  how are they going to ensure that this is the best divide of all the combinations? And any day, reservation is a top-down approach. And I think what India needs is a bottoms up approach. Which is more difficult to do and so people pick the easy way out.

2) Reservation in AP engineering for women - One reader had a comment on why I used the reservation if I didn't want it. Well, the only way I could have avoided using that quota was not declaring that I am a woman. Which I don't think is possible. Whether I liked it or not, whether I needed it or not, after I took my choice of seat, one "woman slot" would be struck off from the pool. And also, the degree with which I graduated (ECE), I got, not because of my EAMCET rank, but because I topped the University (and all its affiliated colleges I believe) in the first year and actually took a branch transfer (from EEE). So it didn't affect me in the end anyway, this reservation thing. Except for casting a shadow.

3) I just checked the number of women in the Congress Working Committee. 4/25 including Sonia Gandhi. You'd think that a person pushing for a women's bill would do better than that for her own party. This is nothing but prepping for the next elections. How can I guarantee that most women will vote for me next time around. Let me reserve some seats for them so I can blow this trumpet in the next GE. This vote bank politics has become Congress's "baaye haath ka khel". They play it so deftly now that no one takes anything amiss. Lest it sounds purely as Congress bashing, other political parties and their internal setups resemble the same. Eg: http://www.cpim.org/content/leadership

4) If any rural or urban woman, underprivileged or otherwise, has enough persona to be able to come to the fore, please lets not insult her intelligence and capability by implying that she cannot win against a man. This is sorry, really. If she can only win against a woman, then does she really deserve to sit in a parliament. Actually, considering the average intelligence level in the parliament, she still can deserve it I suppose but that is a different matter.

S(h)rut(h)i

Subhash was suggesting the name "Shruti" to someone when I remembered that I always wanted to do a post on how much I like the name Shruti. I know a lot of Shrutis and all of the Shrutis I know happen to be great gals!

From the Shruti I know for the longest time (who is one of my besssht friends) to the Shruthi I know for the shortest time, (she is the most awesome diva!) they are all super girls!

I fell in love with the name so much that I was toying with the idea of naming my baby, if it was a girl, Shruti. In spite of me knowing so many of Shrutis :)

Here is to all the awesome S(h)rut(h)i s I know!

Of toys and stereotypes

Since I totally loved our two ELC toys, Subhash got me one of their catalogues when he went to London. I was browsing through it and in the section for toys of older babies and kids there was a marked difference between those for boys and those for girls. The boys ones were mostly tool sets, railway lines, cars, copters etc and the girls were predominantly cooking and dressing up stuff, crockery, kitchen in a bag (some of them were real nice, four grill stove, oven, microwave and what not, and all life size, as tall as the kids were), powder room stuff, dolls to dress up etc. Predominantly pink.

I made a comment saying whoa! why are they segregating toys into neat slots for boys and girls, they are encouraging stereotypes that girls cook and boys work with tools!! (I mean secretly, if you asked me to pick the toys I'd go for that kitchen set anyday, but still!).

So Subhash asked, well, if you had to buy something for Rohan what would you buy? (Trust my husband to deflate me when I am pumping up thinking I made a remarkably clever statement ;) )

Well, it is true, I would never buy that pink stuff for Rohan. (I mean I'd still buy it since it was so cute, but it would be for me, not for him. But if I had a girl, I'd never shy away from buying her the tool set, the railway lines etc, although they were shown with boys playing.

It then hit me that a guy's life is hard. When women dress up in guys clothes like jeans etc, it is all too cool, in fact in this generation you can no longer call trousers, a "guy's apparel". It is universal. But if a guy was to wear a skirt? That would be so no-no. (except in Scotland, but then we are digressing)

We have pervaded and taken over for ourselves everything that was exclusively men: clothes, occupations, lifestyle and habits (drinking, smoking for example) and have at the same time more than zealously guarded and kept our domains to ourselves (anything slightly womanish that a man does and we immediately suspect him to be gay). Poor guys! I feel sorry for them. One of my friends was once saying, you guys can wear mini skirts, shorts, 3/4th pants, capris and what not, and all we are left with is shorts and full length jeans. If I was to wear a 3/4th jeans, I shudder to think what people would make of me.

How true! ;)